City Architecture Turned Into City Music

We are more or less in tune to the sights and sounds of the respective cities/towns we live in, but this is a new take on the concept of what city “sounds” like. Dutch designer Akko Goldenbeld, for his final project before graduating from Design Academy Eindhoven, created a device similar to the concept of a player piano, with a roller that is wrapped in an 3-dimensional architectural model of the city of Eindhoven, which triggers the keys on the piano as a hand crank rolls it around. You get a different dynamic depending on the height of the building on the roller. As the description on YouTube explains, “The tall buildings in the city centre have a heavy touch; the low-rise villas to the South create considerably gentler sounds.”

And turning and turning, the city makes its voice heard: from loud to soft, long to short, high-pitched to low, translating the urban developers’ three dimensional reality into an aural experience. Stadsmuziek (City Music) makes you tune in to the ensemble-playing that is environmental planning.

It’s better to experience it for yourself than for me to explain it, so check out the video above, and also go visit Akko Goldenbend’s website to see some of the other designs he has built over the years.

A tip of the hat to Holy Kaw, which is where I first came across this video.